Letters to the editor for March 10, 2017

Friday

Mar 10, 2017 at 2:01 AM

Placating Yoho

I attended U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho's town hall meeting on March 4 at Countryside Baptist Church. The effort to placate him went too far. First, the pastor of the church admonished the audience with comments about this being his church and private property. He proclaimed rules for attendance and threatened to "shut it down" if his rules were not followed. This was followed by people snatching small paper signs from attendees' hands.

Police were everywhere, conspicuously lined up in front facing the audience. People were assailed with threats of expulsion for speaking out of turn and constantly and vigorously hushed by roaming monitors when they dared cheer or jeer. Few questions were asked and fewer answers given.

Often, Yoho's tone was arrogant or sarcastic. The implication was that he was doing us a favor by attending. After all, he has this district in the bag. Right?

Elaine Francis

Gainesville

Life of service

Gainesville has the unique opportunity to elect a man of quality, integrity and intelligence to our City Commission. Perry Clawson is running in District 2 and I would urge the voters to look into why we should choose him to represent us.

Perry has spent his life in service to our country and is willing to take on the challenges of serving our city. Perry has the life experience to make good decisions regarding GREC, traffic concerns and protecting our basic services.

I've always known Perry to be a fair and dedicated man. His service to our city as a Rotarian, a Guardian ad Litem and a board member of the Gainesville Fisher House for Veterans, long before he even thought of running in District 2, shows he is dedicated to making this city a better place to live for all. I hope to see him on the City Commission.

Dana Nemenyi

Gainesville

Citizens' champion

Craig Carter has been a champion for the citizens of Gainesville who are too busy to form vocal activist groups, the vast majority of local residents called the "silent majority." If the City Commission loses him at the same time we lose Todd Chase (and Perry Clawson loses that race), then the city is doomed to continue following national/global activist trendy issues — issues that proved very costly distractions from truly local interests.

Jeffrey Knee

Gainesville

Advice on system

I’m a retired technology consultant now operating an olive research facility in LaCrosse. As the Alachua County Commission ponders purchase of a new communication system, I offer five suggestions based on my experience responding to Hurricane Katrina.

1. Think “Open Standards” and avoid being married to one company for the next 30 years.

2. Make sure your system can talk to sewer maintenance trucks, the National Guard and the drones you will be using for real-time damage assessment.

3. Make sure adjoining counties’ 9-1-1 centers can share secure voice, video and data on more than one "mutual aid" radio channel.

4. Purchase a couple of man-portable satellite dishes so you can communicate when your cell towers and terrestrial network fails (satellite phones don’t work inside and the batteries are always dead).

For instance, is it really necessary to reverse the Stream Protection Rule, which seeks to protect waterways from debris generated by surface mining? Why would anyone, including Republicans, want coal waste dumped in our waterways?

Clean air is also extremely important. Poor air quality is a harbinger of poor health. Yet, Trump has expressed significant disdain for the EPA, an agency that has played a tremendous role in improving air quality. If air quality standards decline, a significant increase in respiratory illnesses can be expected. Work absences will follow. Disability claims will likely rise as well. This is doubly true if health-care premiums significantly increase and health issues go untreated.

The EPA is too important an agency to be dismissed by Trump and his followers.

Diane Forkel

Gainesville

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